I’ve squirted a fair dollop of love on the upturned faces of stoner doomsters The Sword over the life of this blog.

Warp Riders was in my Top 10 of 2010 with sharp-edged thrash riffage lacing their stoner/doom and a sweet space opera theme.

I’ll always be fond of their debut Age of Winters (2006) for helping lead me back to the path of metal even if they couldn’t get more on Ozzy and Tony’s dicks if they set up their amps in the Sabs’ pants .

We’ll gloss over the shit in the sandwich that is their dreary middle record Gods of the Earth.

BUT I think I might be getting a bit bored of their shtick. New song Veil of Isis – streaming over at that steaming turd of a mag Rolling Stone (!) – is just a bit by-the-numbers.

It’s by no means bad but the riffs feel recycled from The Sword rather than just from Sabbath while the vocal melody also seems mighty familiar.

It’s reasonably catchy and shit, I prefer it to fucking Lamb of God or some other drivel, but it feels a bit safe, yaknowworrimean?

Yet when my esteemed fellow explorer of the heavy Sawtooth Wave cracked open a banana beer and waxed lyrical about Witch Mountain’s latest, I vowed to give Cauldron of the Wild a fair crack of the whip.

So I set aside my d-beat and got my doom on and I tell you… its feels GOOODDDD!

Cauldron of the Wildhardly tears up the blueprint laid out by last year’s breakout South of Salem, which left me cold, so it’s hard to put my finger on what makes this record such a killer.

This post would be a bit pointless if I didn’t try though wouldn’t it?

Speak to the Monkey

I'm keen to support all new music. So if you'd like to send me your band's album or demo for possible review or mention then please email:
monkeydefiesgravity [at] g m a i l [dot] c o m
I can't promise I'll post about it or even be nice about it but I'll definitely listen to it.